


A Game of Chance

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2020 [8]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: The Doctor has once again tracked his old foe, the Master, with the intent of stopping his latest scheme. But not all is at is seems, and the Doctor comes across the most baffling plan he has ever encountered from his most infamous of enemies. So baffling, in fact, that it is in question whether or not there even is a plan.
Series: Fictober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	A Game of Chance

The TARDIS faded into view with a wheezing, groaning sound that nobody was around to hear. The displaced air from the materialisation sent papers flying all around the small room, which continued to fly as the door opened and a long green coat stepped out, swiftly followed by the person wearing it stepping out backwards as he gave one last look at the instruments on the console. There was no doubt about it. This was definitely the right place.

He turned as he exited the TARDIS and a piece of paper flew straight into his face. He attempted to grab the paper and take it away from his eyes, but he missed several times and the paper eventually fell to the ground. The Doctor leaned down and picked it up, vaguely perusing the strangely formatted text until he suddenly realised what it was.

“A script?” he asked, not expecting an answer. Indeed, none came, as there was still nobody around to hear. He shrugged and put down the paper, slowly realising what that sound he’d been hearing since he stepped out the TARDIS was. He had assumed it was the wind, but as he listened closer, it was clearly the sound of distant chatter and cheering. The Doctor followed where it was coming from, leaving the room through a small door and walking down a bland corridor that reminded him of a thousand other identical corridors he had spent his lives running down.

The cheering got louder as he went, and soon he was at a doorway and could clearly hear the cheering outside, in what appeared from the outside to be some form of arena. He could tell even from here there were a lot of people in the room.

“It’s going to be difficult to find him with all those people,” he reasoned to himself, but there wasn’t much else he could do. He walked out into the room.

It was indeed an arena of sorts, but an indoor arena, with crowds of multitudinous species crammed into seats on one side of the room. By the foot of the stands was what appeared to be quite a lot of recording equipment, plenty of cameras and microphones and crews meddling with the equipment, trying to prepare it for whatever grand and awful spectacle was about to happen. On the stage were all sorts of eclectic devices: some form of colourful wheel, three doors in different colours, and a large podium with a platform, hosting two microphones pointed at where somebody would be standing. Two of the cameras were pointed directly at the podium. Definitely something important, the Doctor realised. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

He scanned the room, looking through as much of the crowd as he could, but didn’t spot what he was looking for. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, the cheer of the crowd falling away as he retreated inside his own consciousness, focusing his thoughts and energies, before sending that focus in a telepathic wave around the room, looking for something to connect with, some sign of where his quarry was. Nothing came back. Wherever he was, either he was very well hidden, or he wasn’t here yet. The Doctor considered going back to the TARDIS, but changed his mind before he even had a chance to turn around. His instruments were very rarely wrong. If they had pointed here, then here was where he needed to be. Besides, it wasn’t as if he was wasting time. After all: time travel.

With nothing else to do but wait, he squeezed past a few people sitting cheering in their seats, muttering sorries and excuse mes at a breathless rate, and eventually found a spare seat. Deciding that whoever it had belonged to had less need of it than he did, he sat, and awaited whatever was going to happen. He didn’t have to wait long, however.

Soon, the lights dimmed, and the crowd fell silent. Drums started to roll. Spotlights appeared on the stage. A voice cried out over some loudspeaker.

“Welcome, one and all, to A Game of Chance, and please welcome your host!”

The crowd cheered and clapped as jaunty, happy music started to play over the speakers. A pair of curtains parted behind the stage and a bald man jogged happily onstage, waving cheerily and almost bouncing with excitement. He radiated such delightful and positive energy that the Doctor found himself smiling, and it took him several seconds to realise who it was. The person he had come here looking for. The smile dropped from his face as the crowd continued to cheer and applaud and the happy music continued to play.

“Hello, you!” the Master announced to the crowd. “And welcome to another Game of Chance with me, your host, Terr Mass! I hope you’re ready to carry that energy for a full half hour because have we got a game for you today!”

The Doctor considered standing, shouting at his adversary, and stopping whatever this horrific act was before it even started, but he couldn’t help but be intrigued. What could he be planning that required such an audience, a recording, and such an absurdly cheerful demeanour, even for this particular incarnation, he wondered. He stayed in his seat as the show continued.

“Thank you, thank you,” the Master shouted, performing a couple of dramatic bows. “Thank you for such a warm welcome! And now I hope you’ll give just as warm a hello to tonight’s contestant!”

He raised his arm and fired an exuberant point to the podium, which was now illuminated by spotlights as the same happy music from before played. A new figure stepped up to the podium, a human wearing an excited but slightly nervous smile. The crowd cheered for him as he stepped up to the podium, waving to the onlookers.

“Tonight’s contestant is from a small planet named KO-35, and here’s come here tonight looking to test his luck!” the Master said, darting around the stage like he had eaten entirely too much sugar in the last hour. He waved his arms dramatically, and looked like he was enjoying talking to the audience far more than that Doctor had ever thought possible.

“And now, before we begin, let’s take a look at what the grand prize is!” the Master continued, the lights rounding back on him as he pointed towards the three doors. “And behind these doors is…!”

One of the doors began to swing open. This, the Doctor realised, was the moment. This was when the Master would unleash whatever horror he had planned for these poor, trapped people. This was what he had come here to stop. He stood up from his seat and shouted in his loudest, most authoritative voice: “Stop this now!”

“...a new hovercar!” the Master shouted, the door opening to reveal, as promised, a shiny new top-of-the-range hovercar, but nobody cheered. The music had stopped, the lights were now rounded on the Doctor, and the crowd were staring. The Doctor took a deep breath.

“This ends now, Master!” he threatened. “I don’t know what you have planned for these poor people, but it doesn’t matter, I’m here to put a stop to it!”

To his surprise, rather than maniacal laughter, a declaration of how he could not be stopped, not even so much as a damn you Doctor you’ve foiled me again, the Master simply sighed a deep, weary sigh. The sigh of a man who had been expecting bad news, but had desperately hoped it wasn’t coming, only to receive it at the worst possible time.

“Oh, of course it’s you,” he sounded genuinely morose. “I guessed you might find this eventually, but I sort of hoped you wouldn’t.”

The crowd seemed more confused than angry at this interruption, but appeared to be letting the scene play out.

“I always find out, you know that,” the Doctor shouted again, keeping his voice as loud as it would go. “And I always defeat you!”

“Oh, would it kill you to not make a scene for once?” the Master asked.

“Not make a scene? You love making a scene!”

“True enough,” the Master shrugged, but once again it wasn’t an amused shrug, rather one of downbeat and mild frustration. “Still, I suppose you couldn’t just let me have this, could you?”

His genuine sadness as what was happening took the Doctor aback somewhat. He was expecting the Master to be angry and annoyed at the Doctor putting an end to whatever scheme he was cooking up, but he just...wasn’t. He was just upset.

“I...what is this, anyway?” the Doctor asked.

The Master looked almost genuinely excited to tell him. “This? Why, this is A Game of Chance, of course, only one of the most popular and highly rated game shows in this quadrant.”

“Never heard of it,” the Doctor somehow doubted that the Master was telling the truth. “Even if it is real, what’s your...well, game? What’s your scheme with this show?”

“There is none,” the Master answered, and there was surprisingly little showmanship in the statement. He really wasn’t laying it on nearly as thick as he usually did.

“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” the Doctor demanded, incredulous. “What kind of horror do you have planned for these people you’ve trapped?”

“Trapped?” the Master quoted, a little of that iconic drama creeping back into his voice. “These people are here of their own free will! There is no horror!”

“Really, you can’t think of anything better than that?” the Doctor scoffed, but the crowd was murmuring now. The person to his right tugged on his sleeve, and when the Doctor looked at him they said “he’s right, we all want to be here and we have no idea what’s going on.”

“He hasn’t trapped you?”

“No.”

“Kidnapped you?”

“No.”

“Mind controlled you and forced you all to be here?”

“No, I come here every week and I have for years.”

The Doctor looked between them and the Master several times before finally realising what was happening. “There is no evil plan, is there?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” the Master insisted.

“So...what are you doing?” the Doctor asked. “Are you just...hosting a game show? Why?”

“Is it really that hard to believe that this is just something I do for fun?” the Master answered with another question.

“Frankly, yes,” the Doctor shot back. “Your idea of fun normally involves a lot more killing.”

“True enough,” the Master shrugged. “But I honestly can promise you that this is different.”

“He’s right,” chimed in the person sitting next to the Doctor.

“You’re hosting a game show?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no evil plan to it.”

“Not at all.”

“This is just something you do for fun.”

“That’s right, Doctor.”

“...”

“...”

The Doctor stood where he was and considered. Everything he knew about the Master, every encounter they had ever had, every memory they shared. Finally the Master spoke up.

“Well, Doctor?” he asked impatiently. “Are we going to have some form of scuffle which will result in galactic collateral damage? Or can the show go on?”

“Well,” the Doctor stretched out the word far longer than was necessary. “As long as you’re not actually hurting anyone, I suppose there’s nothing I really need to do. But I will be keeping an eye out.”

“Oh, thank you Doctor,” the Master said, and though it was hidden under several layers of armoured sarcasm, the Doctor could tell that he was at least someone genuine. “And now, if we’re all finished, we can get back to...A Game of Chance!”

The crowd went wild again, the lights began to fly all over the arena, and the happy music started up again as the Doctor squeezed his way back through the seats and walked slowly back to the TARDIS, utterly confused as to what was happening but glad at least that he didn’t have a fight on his hands.

After spending several hours contemplating whether or not he could bring himself to do it, the Doctor had spent the rest of the day watching reruns of A Game of Chance on the time-space visualiser. True to his word, the Master had hosted several hundred episodes without killing a single person, and with almost very few injuries, and none of them were even his fault. The Doctor leaned back in his chair and finally admitted something to himself: for all of his faults, his excesses, and his unfortunate murderous tendencies, the Master really was a very good game show host.


End file.
